Come Back

When he caught the eye of President Myung and Lee Seo-kyung, Choi Hong-seo was just twenty years old, having just graduated from high school. Legally, he was an adult, but socially, he was still a child. It was more terrifying than a violent threat with a knife.

‘Think about it carefully, sir. I only did what Lee Seo-kyung told me to do! In a way, I’m a victim like Hong-seo! Please… Please speak kindly to the vice president. Okay?’

Lee Hae-seong stopped recording while listening to the voice of CEO Myung, who dared to say that he was a victim like Choi Hong-seo and appealed to Director Kang for leniency. If it wasn’t about Choi Hong-seo, it would have been just the sound of a dog barking.

Anyway, I don’t remember seeing the name Yun Hye-an on any other investigation lists at the time.

Meanwhile, the car was entering Dongho Bridge to head to Yeoksam, where ARA Electronics’ headquarters was located. Lee Hae-seong took a drag on his cigarette, which was so short that it almost touched the filter, without even taking a puff, and then he threw his neck into the ashtray without any regret.

“Please find out more about the people around Hongseo if there are any areas that haven’t been fully investigated. Also, please briefly check on actress Yoon Hye-an herself.”

“Shall we go into more detail?”

“No, the basics are enough for now.”

“All right.”

“And when did you return from the Gumi factory?”

“It’s Thursday.”

“I’ll stop by Hanam on my way up that day, so give me some time.”

Director Kang hid his surprise and checked Lee Hae-seong’s expression through the rearview mirror.

If it was Hanam, it meant the memorial park where Choi Hong-seo’s remains are laid to rest.

Hae-seong had never visited there before. No, to be exact, he had never been inside the Bongandang building. He had sent someone to decorate the coffin with new flowers every week, and he had been to the entrance of the memorial park several times.

But he has yet to succeed in getting out of the car.

I just came back after smoking several cigarettes in the backseat and staring blankly at the building standing there with Mt. Namhan in the background for a while.

But this time, his voice was unusual. It was as if he had made up his mind to face Hongseo, Hongseo’s death.

“Is he finally determined to step out of the long shadow?” said Director Kang in a cautious voice, trying not to show his delight.

“Are you okay?”

“Well… I feel strange today.”

“… … ”

“I think I might be able to go now.”

Lee Hae-seong leaned his head back on the seat, muttering to himself. Outside the window, the autumn Han River sparkled brilliantly like shards of the sun broken into tens or millions of pieces.

“Time has passed. You will eventually overcome ‘that thing’.”

“I’m sure Hongseo will be happy to see you.”

Director Kang misunderstood that the traces left by Choi Hong-seo were fading away. However, Lee Hae-seong just smiled quietly. It was a smile like an introverted boy who was happy to recall his own secrets in the midst of many people.

I didn’t feel the need to explain it in words.

No matter how much time passes, ‘these memories’ and ‘these feelings’ will never become distant and blurred, and will never change into ‘that memory’ and ‘that feeling’.

@

“When moving a cat, you shouldn’t just hold the front paws and armpits… um, one hand on the chest, one hand on the stomach… hold them separately and move them…”

Choi Hong-seo, who was sitting on a small two-person sofa next to the bed and mumbling a book, lifted his head for a moment and saw a cat.

Tiffany, curled up in a circle inside Catpole’s transparent hammock, was staring down at me.

“You have to give me a chance to hug you… Tiffany, when are you going to hug me?”

Despite the rather desperate question, the boy just licked his lips with an indifferent expression. Choi Hong-seo returned his gaze to the book.

“When you do a butt-pumping, if you make a loud meowing sound and lower your butt… Ah, this is an expression to lower the intensity…”

Choi Hong-seo, who had been nodding and seriously thinking about the contents, looked at the cat again. And this time, he turned the book over for a moment, right on the page he was reading.

“Butt-bang-bang? You don’t even let me hug you, so will there ever be a day when I can do butt-bang-bang? What do you think, Tiffany?”

Meow.

This time, the guy opened his mouth as if yawning and made a sound. I laughed bitterly because it seemed like he was saying something like, “No way.”

After organizing the officetel in Nonhyeon-dong, it has been about two weeks since we moved out of Gangnam-gu and into Yongsan-gu.

It was not far from the villa where Lee Hae-seong stayed for the last time in ‘Layered’, and it was even closer to the shabby accommodation where he had stayed for a long time before that. This interesting area, where narrow multi-family housing complexes where cars could not even enter the alleys and exotic affluent neighborhoods were right next to each other, fortunately, was not much different from the image in Choi Hong-seo’s memories.

Although it couldn’t compare to the officetel where Yoon Hye-an used to live, the new house wasn’t too small for a studio apartment. For Choi Hong-seo, who had been living in a dormitory for a long time, cramming bunk beds into a multi-family house without even a separate living room, this was enough for him.

I put a bed by the window, and installed a cat pole at the foot of the bed. It was a place where I could look down on the long rectangular house at a glance, and I could look outside and get some sunlight. I tried putting a cat tower or cat pole in a place like that, as I read in a book, and it really worked. It became his hideout in about a month.

To him, Choi Hong-seo was a suspicious person who only had the same appearance as his master, but to Choi Hong-seo, the cat was also an unfamiliar creature. This was because he had never raised a pet before.

In order to live with the cat, I had to learn and master everything from A to Z. Thanks to this, books like “Cat Butler’s Work Diary,” “Meow Meow Cat Encyclopedia,” and “How is Your Cat Now?” were scattered around the small house.

“tiffany.”

The little guy’s ears twitched inside the semicircular transparent acrylic.

“What do you think? Do you think I’ll audition for Cream Mansion?”

Still, he wouldn’t come near me without a treat, and he wouldn’t allow me to pet him or hold him, so I had a hard time brushing him. I had to take the time to study cat habits, but I still didn’t mind living with him.

No, I’m glad he was there.

If I had been alone, I would have been even more unbearable in this anxious situation. I might not have been able to stay at home and might have wandered the streets every night to soothe my anxiety.

At least the guy looked at me when I spoke to him like he did now. Sometimes he twitched his ears, let out a little whine, and waggled his tail. As if he was listening and telling me to keep talking.

Of course, it would be better if you let me pat and hug you…

Choi Hong-seo pulled his legs up onto the sofa and rested his chin on his knees. “They said the audition results would come out today, but why haven’t I heard anything yet?” Tiffany tilted her head.

“It’s not even 1 o’clock yet. Am I being too hasty?” I asked, nodding again.

“If I don’t get cast… there’s no way I’ll ever see that person again.”

Now I am nothing to him. I am a stranger who he cannot contact or visit. No, I am a person he cannot contact or visit.

The cat didn’t react this time. It didn’t even nod.

What would you do if you could meet him again? What would you be able to do in front of that person now? It seemed like he was making such a point. It was probably just a thief’s arbitrary interpretation of his own numb feet.

“Tiffany, would you like a snack?”

To cheer up his anxious mind waiting for the audition results, Choi Hong-seo raised his voice tone. At the word snack, the boy raised his head and pricked up his ears. As Choi Hong-seo got up from the sofa and walked toward the kitchen, the boy jumped down from the cat pole.

I found it cute how honest the guy was, only breaking boundaries when it came to snacks, but never at other times. It made me laugh.

“Okay, I’ll give it to you now. Tiffany, do you want some churu?”

The liquid form of Churu was the boy’s favorite snack. Just hearing the word Churu made the boy feel happy, and the boy’s crying became louder as he followed him.

Just as I was about to open the storage cabinet where I kept my snacks, my cell phone, which I had left on the sofa, rang.

“Just a moment. I’ll answer the phone and give it to you right away.”